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Chris_OVO
Community Manager
Community Manager
January 28, 2025
News

Power Move - new challenge information and changes to Power Move

  • January 28, 2025
  • 238 replies
  • 7839 views
Power Move - New challenge information and changes to Power Move

Updated on 14/07/26 by Abby_OVO

 

Hi everyone,

 

In 2024, OVO customers saved over £1.6 million by shifting their energy and making greener choices with Power Move.

 

Ahead of the challenge starting 1 February 2025, we introduced a few changes.

 

 

Power Move prize draw

 

Whilst Power Move will always be about helping you save money on your energy bills and reducing demand on the energy grid, the way it works has changed.

 

Each month, if you use 15% or less of your total electricity during peak times you’ll now earn entries into a monthly prize draw. The number of entries depends on how much electricity you use during peak times. The lower your home’s peak time energy use, the more entries you’ll earn.

 

 

How we calculate your number of entries

 

If you have a peak time electricity usage of 15% or less at the end of the month, you’ll earn entries for the prize draw. 

 

The amount of entries earned will correspond with your end-of-month peak time electricity use percentage as follows:

 

  • 0 to 1% = 15 entries
  • 1.01 to 2% = 14 entries
  • 2.01 to 3% = 13 entries
  • 3.01 to 4% = 12 entries
  • 4.01 to 5% = 11 entries
  • 5.01 to 6% = 10 entries
  • 6.01 to 7% = 9 entries
  • 7.01 to 8% = 8 entries
  • 8.01 to 9% = 7 entries
  • 9.01 to 10% = 6 entries
  • 10.01 to 11% = 5 entries
  • 11.01 to 12% = 4 entries
  • 12.01 to 13% = 3 entries
  • 13.01 to 14% = 2 entries
  • 14.01% to 15% = 1 entry
  • 15.01% or above = 0 entries

 

After each month ends, the number of entries you’ve earned will be automatically entered into a prize draw, along with all the entries of other customers who’ve earned entries in that month.

 

 

The prizes

 

A minimum of 5 customers each month will win up to a year’s worth of free energy*, with a range of other bill credit prizes also available to win. There’ll be a minimum of 10,000 prizes available every month.

 

You can see what prizes are being offered in the Power Move section of your OVO app and on ovoenergy.com/power-move at the beginning of each new month. 

 

If you’re a winner you’ll be notified in the Power Move section of the app. Customers can win one prize per month.


 

Changes to peak times

 

We've heard your feedback that it can feel difficult to shift your home’s energy use during the current window of 4-7pm. From 1 February 2025, peak times changed to 5pm-7pm, Monday - Friday

 

Weekend usage is still counted as off-peak.

 

 

Updates via the OVO app

 

You'll be able to see your progress through the app. When the new challenge is live, sign in to your account and select 'Power Move' on the home screen.

 

Here, you’ll have a progress dashboard to track how you’re getting on, and see if you’ve won a prize at the end of the month.

 

For more information, visit ovoenergy.com/power-move, our Power Move FAQs and Power Move terms and conditions.

 

*A year’s free energy is set at a maximum bill credit of £2,000. A year’s free energy is calculated in line with Ofgem’s average Energy Price Cap for January-March 2025 for customers paying by Direct Debit, which is worked out based on a 2-3 bedroom house, with 2 to 3 occupants using the average domestic usage in electricity per year. Credit may not equal one year’s free energy if you are a higher than average user or if the price cap were to increase beyond current forecasts. We’ll pay it as energy bill credit in 12 monthly instalments. For example, if you win a year's free energy in January, the credit would be applied to your bill in February and each following month up to the last payment in January the following year.

238 replies

January 28, 2025

Exactly, run the washing machine / dryer / ironing / oven etc at times outside of 5-7pm hence shifting the usage between those hours down on average. If you boiled the kettle every day from 701pm to 1659pm you’d definitely hit it!

Already doing those things outside of the window. Not hitting it. The most energy demanding thing I do is showering at home. To boil the water, it takes 4-5kwh. And I only shower at home once every two weeks. Other time, I shower at the gym to reduce cost. And during 4-7, I only run my laptop and external monitor. My wholeday usage comes to 2-3kwh excluding showering. 2% for a 30day calendar month is at most 1.8kwh. My fridge + laptop usage definitely exceeds that in 20hr time (20 hr is assuming 4 full weeks of weekdays).

My bill is less than £32. Usage is 66 - 90kwh a month.

Just for clarity, I use 45 to 50 kW per month. This month currently my peak usage is 1.5%. Perhaps as a suggestion, just to help you, you could shower at home. There are other things as well but I guess the feeling now that because there's no financial incentive per se, that these tips are now mostly moot (I say ‘mostly’ because the tips can still help to reduce the overall bill) especially if you or anyone trying to use electricity away from home to, understandably, keep your bill down.

 

Even more so now if your peak usage during the 2-hour period stays the same as you'll need to use more electricity during off-peak hours to ensure that the ratio stays at or below the 15% target. The increase in off-peak usage compensates for the shorter peak period. With one less hour and being such a low user, I'll do my friends clothes washing and drying which while reducing their power consumption, it will increase my usage to continue reaching the 1.5% peak period.

 

I might just add that this has been discussed before in a previous post when weekends were added to PM.

Newcomer
January 28, 2025

Just for clarity, I use 45 to 50 kW per month. This month currently my peak usage is 1.5%. Perhaps as a suggestion, just to help you, you could shower at home.

Yea but
1. that’s what everyone has been saying, that you have to increase your usage just to hit target rather than simply moving non-essential electricity use
2. it’s more inefficient because you let the water cool down the whole day while the gym constantly have people using the hot water rather than letting it cool. (I wish UK homes have smaller water tanks just for the shower)

Firedog
Super User
Super User
January 28, 2025

… I'm sure I read somewhere that most of the funding for these power shifting incentives doesn't come from the providers themselves,
 

While there are schemes under the NESO Demand Flexibility Service that are centrally funded, I think I’m right in saying that Power Move isn’t one of them. OVO is doing it off its own back. 

  

We can't shift the shower and our tea to after 7pm. It's just not practical for our lifestyle.
  

This is precisely the rationale for Power Move! Unless people can be persuaded to change their lifestyle, the peak of electricity demand in the early evening will continue to be a headache, boosting the burning of fossil fuel to power your shower and cooker in the early evening. Here’s yesterday’s GB usage of gas to generate electricity:
  

   
Just occasionally (three times so far this winter), NESO sends out a warning that demand is expected to exceed supply, like this a couple of weeks ago:
  

An NESO CMN that generated lots of scary headlines

 
This is the sort of thing that could in severe conditions lead to widespread power cuts, when there just isn’t enough electricity to go around. Power Move and similar schemes help to mitigate shortages like this, especially if they bring about changes in behaviour.
 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |
Rank 2
January 28, 2025

While there are schemes under the NESO Demand Flexibility Service that are centrally funded, I think I’m right in saying that Power Move isn’t one of them. OVO is doing it off its own back. 

@Firedog was is that way in all previous years, or it’s just this year? From that little I read while googling, I understood that since ESO became NESO there were made some changes and some participants weren’t happy about that. Is that the case? 
(I’m fully absorbed in reading documents, thank you for the link!)

I’m still very unhappy with the changes, but at least I’m getting a better understanding with what’s going on. 

Firedog
Super User
Super User
January 29, 2025

… was is that way in all previous years, or it’s just this year?
   

I can’t remember, but I think PM has always been OVO’s own initiative. I won’t be surprised if someone comes along to prove me wrong, though.
    

… there were made some changes and some participants weren’t happy about that.
   

You can please some of the people all of the time, but …

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |
Rank 5
January 29, 2025

Short answer is that I’m out. Not leaving, but just not making an effort by waiting next to the oven until 7pm before cooking. When it was the £12/£15 a month as a guaranteed return I could see real results. 

Its now a gamble and I’m not an statistician, but my maths has been along the lines of:

 

£1.6m paid out in 2024

Max payment of £144, my payment of £84 ( I didn’t get any on the 6-9pm period as I can’t get home before 6 to cook). 

£1.6m/ £144 or £84 = 11,111 to 19,048 entries/ players / participants in 2024 (I know there will be people who earned less than me)

If each get 5 tickets this time, there are between 55,556 and 95,238 tickets. 

5 top, 125 mid and 17,900 low prizes

Very low chance of top prize, 0.13 to 0.225% chance of mid and 18 to 32% chance of a low prize. You can only win once. 

So, 1-in-3 to 1-in-5 chance of getting £2 for the effort. 

 

Prize fund. 

£1.6m / 12 = £133,333

Total value to prize fund for Feb is (5x2000)+(125x50)+(17900*2) = £52,050 🤐

So, yes, I’m out. With this now removed and the lack of interest for in-credit accounts I’ll be willing to move when my fixed term comes up to any company which offers a referral bonus.  

(There is of course the possibility that the person running this raffle is the same one who sent out the power-move-plus update and got their maths backwards, so we could all be getting £2000!

Blastoise186
Super User
Super User
January 29, 2025

Just to clarify something real quick.

OVO Power Move is fully self-funded by OVO - there’s no-one upstream chipping in.

Because of that, OVO doesn’t make a penny of profit out of it. It actually costs them a fortune!

The prize draw is also an automated computer process by the way. No human is involved for legal reasons - it has to be as truly random as possible. It’s a similar thing with the National Lottery. A human is allowed to press the Start Button to get it going, but after that the machine must do everything by itself.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way! Remember, I'm just like you - AI Powered Evil Geniuses aren't Staff!
Newcomer
January 29, 2025

I was wondering, does reducing peak period to 2 hours from 3 make it harder to reach the percentage?

I could be wrong, but at first look, as I see, shorter time slot should make it easier. But it’s a prize draw – that is what makes it harder.

Doing the maths which is a headache, having one hour less in the peak period could make it harder to meet the 15% target, since you now have less time to use the same amount of energy (15% of your off-peak usage).

I think you’ve misunderstood how it works. The window being smaller makes it easier. The target is to be below, not to get 15% of your usage during the peak time.

If you use exactly the same energy throughout the day e.g. just running the fridge/equipment on standby and no spikes like kettle boiling etc 6% will be in the 2 hour peak (10 hours a week, 168 hours total) So if you ensure you do the more intensive usage in the off peak, that % used during peak will reduce

Newcomer
January 29, 2025

Power move is about reducing peak demand true. There is a financial reason also 

Peak demand drive the price per MwH higher  

The electricity market which OVO purchases MwH prices are set every 30 minutes. Here is a brief example

date 28/01

Time      Settlement Period   Price/MwH

16:00               33                       £83.75

16:30               34                       £130

17:00               35                     £106.75

17:30               36                      £117.19

18:00               37                       £130

18:30               38                      £130

19:00               39                       £139

….

23:30              48                        £30   

Source Elexon

 

Reducing peak demand does reduce the risk of power outages but also reduce the cost to suppliers.          

January 29, 2025

Hmm my previous post about Ovo’s 1 billion pound profit seems to have been deleted and no notification sent to me about which forum rule I broke. It was literally just a headline and a link to a reputable site so which rule did I break?

https://www.ovoenergy.com/terms/customer-forum-terms-of-use

 

Edit: So I got a PM saying I broke rule 5.2(f)

”(f) anything that is detrimental to the quality or the intended spirit of the Community, or that is completely off-topic.”